British Women’s Suffrage Movement in 100 Objects

Elizabeth Crawford is an independent researcher and the owner of 'Woman and Her Sphere', a business specialising in selling antiquarian books, pamphlets, postcards and ephemera by and about women. She is author of The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey (2005), The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866-1928 (2001) and Enterprising Women: The Garretts and Their Circle (2002). Elizabeth received an OBE in 2018 for 'services to education' - with particular reference to the history of the women's suffrage movement - and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Each of the ‘objects’ in this wonderful book - which range from a dried lily, originally carried at Emily Davison’s funeral, to board games, costumes, postcards, documents and novelties - is accompanied by fascinating and often revelatory text. With great skill, Elizabeth Crawford leads the reader chronologically through a complete history of the woman’s suffrage movement in the UK, and it’s impossible not to keep turning the pages to see what marvel is waiting on the next. Essential reading for anyone interested in the subject!

• Acknowledgements IntroductionObject 1. The printed pamphlet form of the 1866 women’s suffrage petition.Object 2. Lydia Becker’s dress, 1889. Object 3. Cartoon of Lydia Becker and Jacob Bright, circa 1868.Object 4. An advertisement in the Orkney Herald, 4 October 1871. Object 5. An engraving of a suffrage meeting, 1872. Object 6. Statue of John Stuart Mill, erected 1878.Object 7. Annual reports of 19th-century suffrage societies.Object 8. The Haslam memorial seat, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. Object 9. The Women’s Suffrage Journal.Object 10. Invitation card to ‘A National Demonstration of Women’. 6 May 1880. Object 11. Oil painting by Richard Staunton Cahill, 1888, ‘Mary Smith Lecturing on Woman’s Rights’.Object 12. Carte de visite photograph, Sheffield 1882, annotated.Object 13. Election handbill for Helen Taylor’s candidature at the North Camberwell parliamentary election, 1885.Object 14. An engraving of a meeting of the Women’s Franchise League, 1891. Object 15. Photograph of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy. Object 16. Portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft. Object 17. Helen Blackburn’s bookcase, 1897. Object 18. Scenes at the National Convention for the Civic Rights of Women, magazine illustration, 1903. Object 19. The Pankhurst home, 62 Nelson Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. Object 20. Photographic postcard of the ‘Lancashire and Cheshire Delegates on the Women’s Franchise Deputation to the Prime Minister’, May 1906. Object 21. A German photographic postcard, 23 October 1906.Object 22. Illustration of ‘The Mud March’, February 1907.Object 23. Press photograph taken on 31 October 1906.Object 24. Women’s Freedom League minute book 1907-8.Object 25. A suffrage poster.Object 26. Suffrage scrapbook compiled by Mrs Spencer Graves.Object 27. Suffrage newspapers.Object 28. Women’s Social and Political Union ‘Haunted House’ buckle and belt.Object 29. Women’s Freedom League ‘Dorothy bag’. Object 30. ‘Susan B. Anthony’ suffrage banner, 1908.Object 31. The train and the suffrage movement.Object 32. The bicycle and the suffrage movement.Object 33. The car and the suffrage movement.Object 34. The caravan and the suffrage movement.Object 35. Suffrage offices.Object 36. Women’s Freedom League ‘Proclamation’ banner, 1908.Object 37. Bow Street Police Court, 1908.Object 38. Photograph of women wearing replica prison dress, 1908. Object 39. Record of a speech made by Christabel Pankhurst, 1908.Object 40. Tea rooms and the suffrage movement.Object 41. Suffrage medals.Object 42. Postcard advertising the NUWSS ‘Pageant of Women’s Trades and Professions’, April 1909.Object 43. China and the suffrage movement.Object 44. Women’s Freedom League petition badge, 1909.Object 45. Suffrage society badges.Object 46. Designs for emblems of the federations of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.Object 47. Photograph of Millicent Fawcett planting a tree in Annie’s Arboretum, Batheaston, 1910.Object 48. Photographic postcard of the Prisoners’ Pageant, 23 July 1910.Object 49. Suffrage shops.Object 50. Suffrage postcards.Object 51. Suffrage games.Object 52. Suffrage jewellery.Object 53. Suffrage plays.Object 54 Suffrage novels.Object 55. Suffrage songs.Object 56. May Billinghurst’s ‘Velociman’.Object 57. A Votes for Women poster highlighting male activism.Object 58. National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies flyer in support of the Second Conciliation Bill, 1911.Object 59. ‘Votes for Women’ novelties.Object 60. Diaries and suffrage.Object 61. ‘The Pillar Box and The Suffragette’ money box.Object 62. Anti-suffrage flyer, 1912.Object 63. German photographic postcard of a window smashed by suffragettes, March 1912.Object 64. ‘Elusive Christabel’, optic toy, 1912. Object 65. ‘Topical Chessmen (Suffragettes v. The Law)'.Object 66. A cloth embroidered with the signatures of suffragette prisoners, 1912.Object 67. Forcible feeding: a ‘comic’ postcard.Object 68. A ceramic figurine of a suffragette.Object 69. Report book kept by an organizer for the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage.Object 70. A silver basket ‘Sold for King’s Taxes’.Object 71. The pendant/brooch presented to Millicent Fawcett by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 1913.Object 72. Photographic postcard of ‘Suffragette Fire, Nevill Cricket Ground, Tunbridge Wells’.Object 73. A lily carried at Emily Wilding Davison’s funeral, 14 June 1913.Object 74. National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies Pilgrimage haversack, 1913.Object 75. A still from the film ‘The Hunger Strike’, 1913.Object 76. Group photograph of delegates to the Church League for Women’s Suffrage General Council Meeting, 2 July 1913.Object 77. The Suffrage Annual and Women’s Who’s Who, 1913.Object 78. Mrs Pankhurst’s shoe. Object 79. Irish Citizen Leaflet, 15 August 1914. Object 80. A Flyer for ‘The Right to Serve’ march, 1915.Object 81. East London Federation of the Suffragettes: First Annual Report. Object 82. Photographs of ambulances of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service. 1915-17.Object 83. ‘The Suffrage Oak’, Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow.Object 84. Mrs Despard’s election card, 1918.Object 85. Lady Astor’s parliamentary outfit.Object 86. Helena Normanton’s KC jabot.Object 87. A Minerva Club plate.Object 88. Photograph of a garden party at Aubrey House, Kensington, 1925.Object 89. A poster advertising Time and Tide.Object 90. ‘Pilgrimage of Peace’ banner, 1926.Object 91. Postcard of members of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship photographed at Westminster, 2 July 1928.Object 92. A pamphlet, The Need for Women Members of Parliament, 1921.Object 93. Mrs Pankhurst’s grave.Object 94. A pamphlet, Women and the General Election, 1929. Object 95. Library, Women’s Service House, Westminster, London.Object 96. Sign for the Suffragette Fellowship’s ‘Women’s Record House’.Object 97. Sylvia Pankhurst’s typewriter. Object 98. The Suffragette Fellowship Memorial, Christchurch Gardens, Westminster, London.Object 99. ‘New Dawn’, a contemporary light sculpture celebrating the campaign for women’s suffrage, sited at the entrance to St Stephen’s Hall in the Houses of Parliament, 2016.Object 100. The statue of Millicent Garrett Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, erected 2018.NotesResourcesIndex